


Prince Anders and the honest farmer's son

by Chelidona (Hobbity)



Category: Being Human (UK), The Almighty Johnsons
Genre: Anders is the son of the Queen of Cornwall, Based on Guleesh, Fairies want to kidnap Anders, John Mitchell gets caught up in this, John Mitchell is the son of a farmer, Love Ensues - Freeform, M/M, fairytale AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-27
Updated: 2016-04-27
Packaged: 2018-06-04 21:26:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6676015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hobbity/pseuds/Chelidona
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A fairytale AU based on the Irish fairytale "Guleesh" that I found in a book. John Mitchell joins some fairies for fun and encounters a handsome prince. This is a fairytale, so the son of a farmer might just have a shot at the most handsome prince on Earth.<br/>A fill for the SpringFRE 2016, Prompt 76: A Fairytale</p>
            </blockquote>





	Prince Anders and the honest farmer's son

**Author's Note:**

> I used the internet as my source for Irish here. The original story calls the fairies "sheehogue" sometimes. I googled that, found out that it is the Irish word for fairy (sidheóg, diminuative of shee). "Fairy host" is deenee shee (daoine sidhe) fairy people. I'm not sure if those are the same, but I liked both words so I used them here. If it offends/annoys any Irish speakers, let me know.

Once upon a time there was a young man in the County Mayo called John Mitchell. He was more handsome than any man in all of Erin, but while he was good-natured on occasion, he was much given to brooding.

A little way off from his father’s house there was the fine old rath [ringfort]. Often he was found sitting on the grass bank that was running round it. A dreamer his father called him.

On the last night of autumn, when he was a young man, he sat there again, looking up into the sky. The moon was rising, shining bright red.

As he was watching the fire moon, he heard a great noise coming like the sound of many people running together, talking and laughing. The sound went by him like a whirl of wind and he was listening to it going into the rath. He jumped from the bank into the rath to find out what this was about.

*

Though he did not know it, it was the fairy host, the deenee shee, led by Lord Herrick.

In the rath he heard the fulparnee, and the folpornee, the rap-lay-boota and the roolya-boolya, that they had there, and every one of them crying out as loud “My horse, and bridle, and saddle! My horse, and bridle, and saddle!”

John Mitchell too cried out: “My horse, and bridle, and saddle. My horse, and bridle, and saddle.”

And the next moment there was a beautiful horse with a bridle of gold, and a saddle of silver standing before him. He leaped up on it in a swift movement. When he was on its back he could see that the rath was full of horses, and of little people riding on them.

A sheehogue, Lord Herrick, said to him: “Are you coming with us tonight, John Mitchell?”

“Surely,” he replied.

“Then come along,” said the fairy.

They rode out of the rath, fast as the wind, faster than the fastest horse of men.

They did not stop that full race until they came to the brink of the sea.

Then every one of them said “Hie over cap! Hie over cap!” and they were up in the air. Before John Mitchell had time to think, they were on dry land again.

*

They were next to a large castle, sitting on a cliff above the sea. Lord Herrick said to John Mitchell.

“Do you know where you are now?”

“I do not.”

“You’re in Cornwall, John Mitchell,” said the sheehogue. “The son of the Queen of Cornwall is to be married tonight. He’s the most handsome man that ever the sun saw. And we desire him greatly. But you must come with us so we can put put the prince up behind you on the horse. It’s not lawful for us to put him behind ourselves. But you’re mortal, you’re flesh and blood. He can take a good grip of you, so that he won’t fall off the horse. Will you do what we’re telling you?”

John Mitchell, in the rush of the adventure, replied: “I’ll do anything that yez tell me to.”

They all got off their horses. Herrick said a word that John Mitchell did not understand, and they were lifted up. Next John Mitchell found himself and his companions in Tintagel, the palace of the Queen. A great feast was going on. There was not a nobleman or noblewoman in the British Isles that had missed the wedding. They were all dressed in the finest silk and satin, bedecked with gold and silver.

The hall was as bright as the day with all the lamps and candles that were lit. The country boy John Mitchell had to shut his eyes, overcome by the splendor.

When he opened them again, he thought he never saw anything as fine as the sight before him. There were a hundred tables set at the sides of the hall, near overflowing with food and drink. There was flesh-meat, and cakes, and sweetmeats, and wine and ale, and more drinks than John Mitchell could name. More than John Mitchell had ever laid eyes on.

Musicians at the end of the hall were playing merry tunes. Fine young women and handsome young men were dancing in the middle of the hall. Going round so quickly and lightly, that John Mitchell’s head was spinning just looking at them.

The Queen of Cornwall had four beautiful sons and her second born, Prince Anders, her favourite, was to be married to the daughter of King Loki of Wessex that night. The feast lasted three days, and on the third night, they young couple was to be married. This was the night that John Mitchell and the deenee shee came to carry off Prince Anders.

*

John Mitchell and his fairy companions stood at the head of the hall, where a fine altar was set up with two bishops behind it waiting to marry the prince and the princess.

Nobody could see the deenee shee or their human companion, for they said a word as they came in, that made them all invisible.

“Tell me which of them is Prince Anders,” asked John Mitchell.

“Don’t you see him there?” asked Lord Herrick.

John Mitchell looked to where the little man was pointing with his finger. And there he saw the loveliest man that had ever graced the world of men. His hair was falling from his head in buckles of gold, his fine jaw was covered with glorious golden stubble, his lips lush, his arms and hands were strong and muscular, his form stocky and firm.

John Mitchell was nearly blinded by the beauty in front of him; but when he looked closer he saw that there were traces of tears in Prince Anders' blue eyes, a muscle flicked angrily at that beautiful jaw and his mouth was tight. His posture was at odds with his fine form; his shoulders slumped in defeat.

“How can he be grieved,” said John Mitchell, “Everybody around him is so full of cheer.”

“He has reason to be grieved,” said the sheehogue, “for he does not wish to marry Princess Eva. He loathes her he has to marry. But indeed,” Herrick added, curling his lips in an ugly way, “indeed, it’s no king’s daughter he’ll marry, if we can help it.”

John Mitchell pitied the young prince when he heard that.

A weight settled in his chest when he thought that he prince would either have to marry a woman he hated, or, and that was worse, take a nasty sheehogue as husband or wife.

However, he did not say a word, wary of what would become of him if he did.

*

He could see that the other princes pitied their brother greatly. The youngest prince, though taller than Prince Anders, had his hand on his brother’s shoulder. The oldest was standing behind his brothers, seemingly unaffected but his eyes were full of sorrow.

John Mitchell began to think of how he could save the prince from his fate, but he could think of nothing.

He was looking on when the Princess Eva came up to the princes of Cornwall and asked Prince Anders for a kiss. The blond prince turned his head away with a sneer.

John Mitchell was ready to surge forward and defend him, when he saw the lady smiling at the reaction and taking the beautiful hand, drawing Prince Anders out to dance.

They went round in the dance near the deenee shee and he could see disgust plain on the prince’s face and unholy glee and hunger in the princess’s.

*

When the dance was over, the Queen of Cornwall and the King of Wessex came over to their children and said that this was the right time for the ceremony.

They led their children to the altar with the lords and ladies and the other great people following them.

When they came near the altar, one sheehogue stretched out his foot before the Prince and he fell. Before he could raise again, the sheehogue threw something that was in his hand on him and said a couple of words.

The prince was gone from the sight of the mortals. The deenee shee seized him and handed him to John Mitchell who had to carry the prince out of the palace.

Not the Queen, nor the princes nor anyone else saw them. Out of the door and out of the palace they went, without being hindered. For no-one saw them, but there was a great hubbub behind them, with the Queen, her sons, lords and ladies searching for the fallen prince. Princess Eva’s laughter could be heard throughout the hall.

*

Outside the palace the fairies all said “My horse, my bridle, and saddle!” and John Mitchell followed suit.

The horse was standing ready caparisoned before him.

“Jump up, John Mitchell,” said Herrick, “And put the prince behind you; the morning is not far off now.”

John Mitchell hoisted the bewitched and dazzled prince on his horse’s back and leaped up before him. He put the prince’s arms around his waist, then the fairy host galloped to the nearby coast.

“Hie over cap!” said every sheehogue.

“Hie over cap!” said John Mitchell and his horse rose under him. A moment later they all came down in Erin.

They did not stop but raced back to County Mayo, to John Mitchell’s house and the rath. And when they came to the house, John Mitchell turned, caught the prince in his arms and jumped off the horse.

“I call and cross you to myself, in the name of God!” said he.

The horse turned into the beam of a plough that the fairy magic had turned into a horse. And every other horse they deenee shee were riding turned back to its natural form. Some of them were an old besom, some a broken stick, or a hemlock-stalk, or the twig of an apple tree.

The fairies cried out when they heard what John Mitchell had said.

“Oh! John Mitchell, you bodach, you thief! Why did you play that trick on us?”

But John Mitchell had consecrated the Prince to himself and they could not carry him off.

“Oh! John Mitchell, isn’t that a nice turn you did us? Were we not kind to you? You’ll pay us another time. Believe us, you’ll repent this.”

“He’ll have no good to get out of the young man,” said Herrick, the Lord of the deenee shee. He moved over to Prince Anders and struck his face.

“Now,” said Herrick, “he is struck dumb. Tell me, John Mitchell, what good will he be to you when he’s dumb?”

*

Before John Mitchell could answer, he and the rest of the deenee shee were gone into the rath and he saw them no longer.

He turned to the young prince, who stood glancing around himself in disbelief. John Mitchell asked:

“Would you not sooner stay with me than with them?”

The Prince gave no answer. But his eyes were on John Mitchell, awakened from his stupor.

John Mitchell understood that the prince must surely be confused by the events of the night.

“I’m afraid that you must spend this night in my father’s house. We will have to think what will become of you now.”

The beautiful prince remained silent, but a sneer formed on his face.

“My prince,” said John Mitchell, “tell me what you would like me to do. I promise I am not a sheehogue. I am the son of an honest farmer, and I went with the deenee shee without knowing it. If I find a way to send you back to your family I’ll do it, I promise.”

He looked into the prince’s face, and he saw the mouth moving as if he was going to speak, but now sound came.

“Are you truly mute then?” asked John Mitchell.

The prince raised his hand and put his finger on his tongue to show that he had indeed lost his voice. His blue eyes were shimmering with tears, even though they still were defiant. Tears escaped John Mitchell’s eyes too. As rough as he was on the outside, he had a soft heart and he could not stand to see the plight of the young prince.

He began thinking about what he ought to do. He had told the prince that he would bring him to his father’s house. But he knew well that his family would not believe his adventure. He was afraid they would mock the stranger in his fine clothes.

As he was thinking, his gaze wandered and finally fell on a small house at the outskirt of the nearby village.

“I know now what to do,” he said. “I’ll bring you the house of my friends, George and Nina. They will not refuse me and they are very friendly.”

The prince nodded, but did not look at John Mitchell again.

*

They thus went together to his friends’ house. The sun was just rising when they came to the door. John Mitchell beat it hard.

George was still in his nightcap as he opened the door with a big yawn and a frown.

“John Mitchell,” he started sternly, but then leapt back when he became aware of the prince. “Who have you here? Who is he, how did he get here?”

For at this time it was rare for a stranger to pass through the county. And none appeared alone in clothes finer than any farmer in the village had ever clapped eyes on.

“I will tell you later. Now I come to ask you to give him a lodging in your house.”

George stared at him, but Nina appeared behind him, a robe tied tightly around her middle. She desired them to come in and brought them into the parlour.

“Now, John Mitchell,” she said, “tell us truly who this young lord is.”

John Mitchell told the whole story then. George could not help calling out and clapping his hands together for most of the story.

When John Mitchell said that it seemed that the prince was loath to marry Princess Eva, Prince Anders nodded fervently, easing John Mitchell’s heart. The fairies had been truthful in this at least.

*

George and Nina said they would take in the Prince for as long as he pleased, but that they did not know what to do with him, for they were mere peasants and not wont to entertain royalty. Nor did they know how to send him back to Cornwall.

John Mitchell said that he was uneasy about the same thing, but when they looked to the prince, the blond man just shrugged and leant back in his chair to show them he was comfortable.

They then decided that the Prince would pass as Nina’s cousin from the county of Dublin, who had come on a visit to the newly-wed couple. They would tell everyone he was mute and would do their best to keep prying eyes away from him. The prince nodded to express his approval.

John Mitchell went home then. He told his family that he had fallen asleep in a ditch. They were not pleased but neither were they surprised.

***

The arrival of a stranger caused a great stir in the neighbourhood. Nobody had heard about Nina’s cousin from Dublin and poor George was tripping over his own tongue when he went to the tavern and his neighbours demanded to know the precise family connection.

***

Everyone noticed John Mitchell’s interest in the handsome young stranger. He had often been seen with George in the past, but now he visited his friend nearly every day. He hoped that one day, the prince would find his voice again, but he remained mute.

The prince used his hand and fingers, and his eyes and face to talk and soon they all understood each other well. Prince Anders had all the arrogance expected in a prince, smirking and laughing at George’s clumsiness and general bustling about. The rustic clothes they gave him were clearly uncomfortable to him. But he also had the most charming smile, and did full justice to Nina’s home-cooking and the dogs adored him.

*

John Mitchell, George and Nina were often wondering how they could bring the young prince back to his family. They gave the young prince quill and parchment and told him to write a letter to his mother, the queen. He shoved the writing material back into their hands with a look of disdain.

They tried to write themselves. But George said that the Queen of Cornwall was unlikely to believe a letter clearly written by a peasant from a far-away county in Erin. For once, his wife and best friend agreed with him.

***

The prince went on many a visit to John Mitchell. As no one was aware of the visitor’s rank, John Mitchell’s father soon expected the young friend of his son to make himself useful when he came.

Although the disdain was plain on the young man’s face, he began to help not only John Mitchell’s family but George and Nina as well. The prince was a fast learner and soon made himself truly useful. When Nina was expecting she was glad to have an extra hand in the house.

John Mitchell found himself falling deeper in love with every day he spent in the prince’s company.

***

The year passed. The prince helped with the harvest and at the harvest feast, he danced only with John Mitchell. He was shorter but his strong arms lifted the farmer’s son up with little effort. Knowing looks were passed among the villagers.

*

The last day of autumn came again. John Mitchell had given the events much thought over the year. He had resolved to stand in the same place as the year before to see if the deenee shee appeared again.

When night came, he went to the rath early in the evening and he concealed himself by leaning on an old grey flag. The moon rose again like a ball of fire behind him, a white fog rose over the grass. The night was calm. No sound but the chirping of an insect could be heard, or the sudden screams of the wild geese as the passed from the fields to the lake where they rested at night. Thousands of stars twinkled in the clear sky.

He stood there for many an hour. At last, when he had begun to believe the deenee shee would not come this night, he heard the noise coming towards him and recognized it in an instant. Like a whirlwind the fairies burst into the rath.

They were scarcely gathered in the rath when they all began shouting and talking. As before they each cried “My horse and bridle, and saddle! My horse and bridle, and saddle!”

Lord Herrick looked around. “Is John Mitchell among us again?”

The fairies laughed.

“He would not dare!” one of them shouted.

“Isn’t he a prime lad, though! To take a prince with him that never said as much to him as ‘How do you do?’ since this time last year!” said a third sheehogue.

“Perhaps he likes looking at him,” said another voice.

“And if the omadawn only knew that there’s a herb growing up by his door, that he just needs to boil to restore the prince’s voice,” said the next sheehogue.

“He’s an omadawn.”

“Don’t bother your head with him; we’ll be going.”

And they rose up into the air. John Mitchell looked after them until he was sure they were truly gone.

*

He was wondering if there was really a herb growing at his own door that would bring Prince Anders’ voice back. But he was determined to search for it in the first light of the morning, though he doubted anything grew there but thistles and dockings.

John Mitchell did not sleep until the sun rose in the morrow. Then he got up and searched through the grass about the house. It was not long until his search was rewarded; a large strange herb was growing just by the gable of the house.

There were seven little branches coming out of the stalk, and seven leaves on every branch of them; there was a white sap in the leaves.

Surely nobody had noticed this herb before. This herb would be known to him then. And if there was any herb that could lift the curse, it must be a strange herb such as this.

John Mitchell cut the plant and carried it to the house. In the kitchen, under the curious stares of his mother and sister, he stripped the leaves of it and cut up the stalk. A thick white juice came out of it, almost like oil.

He put it in a little pot with water and laid it on the fire until it was boiling. Then he poured it into a cup. He suddenly thought that the deenee shee might have been aware of him; they might be only tempting him to kill the prince.

Setting the cup down again, he dipped his finger into the liquid. When he put the finger in his mouth, he found that it tasted sweet.

After he had carried the cup to his room, avoiding the questions, he drank a full half of it. He fell asleep in an instant and did not wake until night with great hunger and thirst.

He went down to listen to his parents scold him while he ate all the bread in the pantry and drank a good deal of ale.

*

The next morning he went to George and Nina’s house. They wondered why he had not visited them for two evenings. He told them and Prince Anders the news. The prince took the proffered cup without hesitation.

A heavy sleep came on him and he did not wake up until the next day. John Mitchell had gone to work in the fields during the days, accused by his father to be “away with the fairies” and impatient to return.

He stayed by the prince’s side during the night. When the sun rose, Prince Anders awoke and rubbed his eyes. He looked mildly astonished when he saw John Mitchell sitting next to his bed.

They both remained silent for a moment, looking at each other. Then John Mitchell cleared his throat.

“Did you sleep well, my prince?”

“I slept long, it seems.”

John Mitchell did not wait until the end of the sentence to let out a shout of joy that brought George and Nina running into the room.

“He speaks!” John Mitchell informed them joyously. Prince Anders pushed himself up on the bed.

“I do,” he confirmed, smirking indulgently. His dimples had never seemed deeper. “And I thank you for your care and for the cure. But now I’m hungry.”

“Oh, of course!” George bustled out of the room, followed by Nina who was shaking her head at the antics of her husband and her husband’s best friend, who was now hovering over the bed. He had nearly hugged the other man, but remembered just in time that Anders was a prince, and he nothing but a farmer’s son.

The prince grinned now, leapt off the bed and opened his arms. John Mitchell took the invitation gladly and hugged him tightly.

“My prince.”

“Yours.” Anders leant his head back so he could look up at John Mitchell’s face and winked.

*

Before they could talk further, George and Nina returned with a tray full of the best food their kitchen offered. Even if the egg had clearly been fried in haste.

The prince devoured the meal with all the grace of a famished farm hand.

*

An hour later they were in the smokehouse of John Mitchell’s farm, salting and preparing meat to be smoked. Prince Anders had not stopped telling droll stories since breakfast, mainly about the affairs and romantic intrigues at the court of Cornwall.

John Mitchell peered at him after he told the story of his baby brother Axl and his clumsy attempts to make love to the ladies in waiting.

“You’ll be wanting to go back now.”

Anders' eyebrows rose.

“I will be wanting what?”

“Return to Cornwall. Now you can talk again and …”

“John.” Anders put the bowl of salt in his hands down. “I refused to write a letter home for one year. What do you think I meant to say by that?”

“That you were too embarrassed to return as a mute?”

"That I do not wish to return!” Anders cried in frustration. “You have seen Princess Eva!”

“But, your family …”

Prince Anders looked down. “I may miss my brothers,” he said. Then he cocked his head. “Axl at least. And Michael a bit. Perhaps Ty too when I am feeling very low.”

“And the life at court,” John Mitchell reminded him. “Here you have no tables flowing over with food, prepared in ways I can’t even name. No silk and satin clothes. No ladies in waiting to make love to.”

“No.” Anders looked up at him and smirked. “No. It was my sport to seduce the men and women at court before my mother decided to betroth me to Princess Eva and you abducted me.”

“But?”

Anders shrugged and picked up the salt again, busying himself. “I have learned much about farming this year.”

“You’re a natural,” John Mitchell agreed.

“So I don’t think I’m a burden if I stay here.”

“There’s nothing here for you!” John Mitchell cried. Anders put the bowl down a second time and his hand on John Mitchell’s clenched fist.

“You are here.”

“I …”

John Mitchell could scarcely make out the hungry yet tender look in the dim light. But a moment later, he was pressing Prince Anders, plain Anders now, against the sooty wall of the smokehouse.

***

When his mother came in, she separated them with an old besom.

“Yez will have to be married before I let yez alone in any dark rooms!” she admonished them, but chuckled fondly when both declared they would get married the very next morning.

***

And this is the story of handsome Prince Anders and his farmer husband John Mitchell. It is told that they did indeed get married the next day and that the celebration, exactly one week later, was the loudest and merriest the county had seen in many a year. 

If Prince Anders ever wrote to his family or if they never learnt of his fate is not told. But he lived out the rest of hisdays in the County Mayo with his faithful husband and their love ever grew.

**Author's Note:**

> The text this is based on is "Guleesh" from "Irish Fairy Tales" collected by Joseph Jacobs, selected by Jennifer Chandler for Wordworth Classics, published 2001. It is based on the collection "Celtic Fairy Tales" from 1892, which you can find on google books, I think. Some parts follow the story very closely (occasionally I did not even change the words), others are mine, like the ending obviously. In the original fairytale, it is the princess of France, not Cornwall, and the princess's only personality traits were that she had actually told her father she didn't want to marry the prince and had manage to delay the wedding for 3 years, but is meek and prone to have tears rolling down her beautiful white cheeks otherwise. She married Guleesh because the only people she had contact with at that point were the priest she was lodging with (I replaced him with Nina and George) and Guleesh and she liked Guleesh better (plus the priest is a priest, of course). How romantic. He was deeply in love but as a virtuous princess she did have those nasty feelings, apparently.
> 
> This is not betaed because I wanted to post it before the deadline for the SpringFre is over. Also, this is my first Britchell.  
> Let me know what you thought, comments absolutely make my day.


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